August 10, 2002: Here's my take on Gold Medal writer Wade Miller (actually a writing team), as posted to rara-avis, the hardboiled listserv:

I thought I might as well read Wade Miller's THE TIGER'S WIFE (1951) for a very good reason: I'd never read it before. I'd read several others by the Miller team, though, including the one that's probably my favorite of theirs, THE BIG GUY (1953). Before reading THE TIGER'S WIFE, in fact, I scanned THE BIG GUY to see if it was as good as I remembered. It was. Great opening: "Joe Drum glanced dispassionately at the blood on his knuckles. It was not his own blood. Even if it had been, the mere sight of blood would have lighted no fire of emotion in his eyes, which were a rusty-brown color like old armor plate. Noe one ever knew what went on inside Joseph T. Drum, and he was proud of that. He dried his knuckles on the clothes of the mand held pinioned before him." And there's an even better ending, which really impressed me Back in the Day. I read it again, and it's still good. I won't quote it because it's a spoiler. I wonder, though, if Peter Rabe didn't go to school on Wade Miller.

But I digress. Back to THE TIGER'S WIFE. Another classic GM situation: a guy meets a beautiful woman and they marry in haste. As the book goes along, he begins to discover that she isn't at all what he thought she was. That's the case here. Lucius Bohy is a knockaround guy, gun-runner, soldier of fortune, nicknamed The Tiger. You know the type from other GM books. He meets Jill Spring and before he realizes it, his life is really changed. This is definitely not a feminist tract. Maybe it's the reverse, but again I don't want to give away too much. Readable and slick, and if there's way too much of that irritating love talk, there's a good reason for it. The psychology is very 1950s, but that's part of the book's appeal for me. There's some hot (for the early 1950s) sex, some of it just a little kinky. And another great ending.

If you have any of these early Miller books in your collection, give one a try.

August 9, 2002: Judy and I went to see BLOOD WORK this afternoon. Not a bad movie, but pretty easy to figure out. Clint Eastwood was good, and in fact so was most of the cast. It was nice to see an old-fashioned cop movie, with no car chases and no big special effects. Just a straightforward story.

August 8, 2002: Went to Wal-Mart (Boy, I go to Wal-Mart a lot, don't ? But then where else is there to shop in Alvin, Texas?) and bought the DVD release of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. Not for me, though. I'm giving it to Allen for his birthday, along with several other DVDs, all westerns. It's nice to know that somebody his age is still interested in watching westerns. I figure most of the ones sold go to people my age.

This afternoon I took Judy to the doctor to get the drain removed from her surgery. All went well, and she didn't even feel it when the nurse removed the tube. This wil make bandaging her back a lot easier.

August 7, 2002: Here's my take on forgotten writer Jonathan Craig, in a message I posted to the rara-avis list:

Dragnet probably spawned plenty of fictional procedural
series, but two of the best were published as paperback
originals. You all know about one of them, Ed McBain's 87th
Precinct series, which eventually went into hardback and is
still going on. The other one began about a year before
McBain's, and hardly anyone remembers it. Too bad, because
it's a good one. The author was Jonathan Craig, and the
series is set in a (named) New York City. The main
characters are two homicide cops, Pete Selby and Stan
Rayder. They work out of the 6th precinct, and most of
their cases (I think there were 10, all for Gold Medal) are
in Greenwich Village. The book I picked to re-read (for no
particular reason) was CASE OF THE PETTICOAT MURDER (1958).

The book opens, as nearly every Selby/Rayder case with the
discovery of a beautiful nude murder victim. It proceeds
with very little action but a lot of attention of details
(both of forensics and of regular police routine). And with
plenty of cross examination by Selby. Craig was really good
with dialog, and the story moves right along. Like all the
crimes Selby and Rayder get involved with, this one has
plenty of sexual overtones. Here's Selby: "People do weird
things for sexual enjoyment; strangling themselves and
others is only one of them. The idea, of course, is to stop
just the other side of climax and just this side of death;
but by the time that point is reached, the victim is often
in such a state of excitement that he no longer recognizes
it. In our years together, Stan and I have cut down a lot
of them: men dressed in women's clothing, girls with their
bodies coveredwith obscene words written in lipstick, men
and women with their stomachs bristling with needles or
forearms livid with cigarette burns." Pretty strong stuff
for 1958. (Trust me; I was there.) But at the same time,
there's Gold Medal's apparent ban on the grosser
body-function words. One character, for example, is "peed
off."

If you read several Selby books in a row, there would
probably be a sameness about them, but I highly recommend at
least one. Why didn't they hit the big time like McBain's
books? One reason was almost certainly Craig's decision to
write in the first person. He doesn't have the big cast
that McBain does. And of course McBain's plots are a lot
more varied.

August 6, 2002: The reviews for Anna Nicole Smith's "reality" show are brutal. I watched it, of course, because Anna is from my hometown of Mexia, Texas. In fact, my brother taught high school there for many years, and she was in one of his biology classes. Under a different name, of course. She's clearly dumber than a rock, but she was smart enough to somehow go from working at Jim's Crispy Fried Chicken (where my father used to go because he liked the gizzards) to becoming a media phenomenon. Smalltown girl makes good. I mean, my brother's a lot smarter than she is, and he's not famous.

I have to admit the show was awful, though. Anna Nicole slurred her words so that I could hardly understand her. She knew nothing at all about the suicide bombings in the Middle East, and in fact when someone told her about them, she said, "Doesn't that hurt?"

But there she is: a star. Or what passes for one nowadays. Gotta give her credit for that.

August 5, 2002: Time to get busy on the book I'm writing, as I just signed a contract to do another one, due December 15. I'll have to write fast, and I'm just hoping I can get it done.

Today is probably my next-to-last on the job. I have some vacation time coming, and I'll start taking those days on Wednesday. When I get back, the summer session will be over, so there'll be only a few people there. It's going to be pretty strange not to have a place to go. I'll be the Ghost Crider in the Sky, as the guys said in their song. I still haven't finished cleaning out the office, so that needs to be done, and the sooner the better.

I've figured out the digital camera, or pretty much so. No all I need is an excuse to take pictures.

August 3, 2002: Nothing going on today except my nursing duties. I managed to change the dressings without killing Judy, but I'm so clumsy that it was touch and go for a while there. The incision is very clean, what with all the fluid going into the drain (which I've had to empty twice, so far). Looks like I might have to buy some more tape and possibly some more gauze pads later on.

Later this afternoon I'll give the lawnmower one last chance. I'm tired of messing around with it and having it worked on every summer. A new one might not be any better, but it should get me through a couple of years before it quits on me.

OK, I got a new lawnmower. At Wal-Mart. I asked the checker for help (lawnmowers are heavy). There were five employees in a little knot standing nearby, talking about their rich, full personal lives, I guess. The checker didn't have to call them but three times before she finally got the attention of one of them. He very reluctantly helped me get the mower onto a cart. The checker asked him to help me load it into the truck, but he clearly didn't want to do that. Why, he'd have to walk out into the hot parking lot! I got tired of it and pulled the cart out into the lot myself. When I got to the truck, I saw him emerge from the door. So, what the heck, I waited. Why deny him the exercise. he helped me load it and started to leave. I figured that if he didn't pull the cart back, I sure wasn't going to do it. But after a couple of steps he turned back and I gave him the handle. A typical employee? I hate to think so.

August 2, 2002: Something seems to have happened to yesterday's entry, so I'll mention here that the retirement reception wasn't as bad as I'd feared. The group with which I occasionally pick and sing presented a few numbers, including the stirring "Ghost Crider in the Sky." Hard to believe they sounded so good without me. I got a swell digital camera and a Texas Ranger jersey signed by Nolan Ryan. Now I guess I'll have to go away.

Judy had day surgery today to remove a lipoma from her back. She's home already and doing fine. Her major problem will be dealing with her nurse (me), who's mostly incompetent.

The lawnmower is kaput. The only thing worse than mowing the lawn is not being able to mow it because of the @$#!%& lawnmower. I've had this one worked on far too often, so I'm ditching it for a new one. I can't afford it, but I'm tired of the hassle.

July 31, 2002: I hate mowing the yard. It was my job when I was a kid at home, and I mowed a big yard with a push mower, one of those old reel-type mowers powered by me. We later moved to a house with an even bigger yard, and after I'd mowed it a couple of times, my father relented and bought a power mower. I thought that was pretty cool, and for a while mowing wasn't such a chore. But then it became boring again. It's been boring ever since. Except for a few years when I was in college and later when I lived in apartments, I've been mowing the yard. Probably forty years of yard-mowing all told. No wonder I hate it.

Tomorrow is the little "retirement reception" that the college is giving me. I'm not fond of receptions, but they beat mowing the yard. The catch is that I mowed my front yard today. Tomorrow I have to mow the back yard when the reception's over.

July 30, 2002: Spent some time today talking to Bea Hugetz, who'll be taking my place as department chair of English when I retire next month. She's been working at ACC longer than I have, so I'm sure she'll adjust easily to the new job.

Ran in the rain during the lunch hour. It was a nice break from the heat. I got wet, but then I'm soaking when I finish a run in the summer whether it rains or not.

Didn't get much of the office cleaned out today, but I have about a month left to take care of all that. I'm hoping to be allowed to leave several boxes there until the middle of September or thereabouts.

Writing this stuff down and reading over my earlier comments makes me realize what a dull life I lead. Eating Mexican food for dinner will be the highlight of my day.

July 29, 2001: Went out for a run this morning around 8:30. Very humid, but still a pretty good time of day for a run. In less than a month I'll be retiring from my job as Chair of the Division of English & Fine Arts at Alvin Community College, where I've been teaching since 1983. I'm looking forward to the free time, but I'm not looking forward to poverty, which is what I may experience if the stock market doesn't turn around soon. I'm hoping to make a few book sales over the next few years, but that's not going to help immediately.

Judy and I have three cats: Speedo, Geri (or Baby), and Sam. Speedo is about 14, and he's developing what seem to be symptoms of diabetes. I'll have to get him checked out. I'd hate to have to give him shots.

Went to Wal-Mart today and bought Allen some DVDs for his birthday: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly; Red Dawn; Silverado; The Quick and the Dead. He likes westerns, which is a rarity these days, or at least Hollywood seems to think so.

July 28, 2002: I'm starting this blog on my 61st birthday, and about one month before I retire. I have no idea what's going to be here, but for now I'll just use it as a diary.
For my birthday, we made peach ice cream, the first time we've done that in years. We used the old wooden freezer that has a hand crank. You have to earn your ice cream around here. It had to root around in the attic for quite a while before I found the freezer, but it was in great shape. The ice cream was as good as I remembered. My mother's recipe. My wife, Judy, fixed lasagna, and our daughter, Angela came over. Our son, Allen, lives in Austin and couldn't be here, but we talked to him on the phone.